In 1982 arcades were still big business. Over $7 billion was spent by arcade obsessed gamers that year, a quarter at a time. The Vectrex was an example that with a little ingenuity the vector graphics experience of arcade games such as Armor Attack could be brought into the home. The concept for the Vectrex began with an idea by John Ross of a company known as Smith Engineering. Along with his colleagues Mike Purvis, Tom Sloper, and Steve Marking, John took a 1″ cathode ray tube and a few parts from a television set and created a working vector display. (for those who are wondering what a Vector display is, think of the graphics to a game like Asteroids)
During the development of the console the idea of what form it should exactly take changed multiple times. In the beginning the thought was to create a hand held device called the “mini-arcade” with the project changing form after they all settled on a tabletop unit with a nine inch screen. – Read the rest of the article here from Classic Console Magazine (courtesy of Old School Gamer)!
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